Electronic Media Players have become popular personal entertainment devices due to their highly portable nature and interconnectivity with existing computer networks, for example the Internet. The accessibility and simplicity in downloading music and other electronic media continues to fuel the popularity of these devices as is exemplified by Apple Computer, Inc.'s highly successful iPod™ portable media player. Recent models also allow for the storage and display of personal photos allowing users to carry about a photo album stored in memory of the portable media player. Other manufacturers have competing Media Players offering various functionalities and file playing compatibilities in an effort to differentiate their products in the marketplace.
As discussed in Apple Computer, Inc., patent application, US 2004/0224638 A1, Ser. No. 10/423,490 to Fadell, et al., which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety; an increasing number of consumer products are incorporating circuitry to play musical media files and other electronic media.
For example, many portable electronic devices such as cellular telephones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) include the ability to play electronic musical media in many of the most commonly available file formats including MP3, AVI, WAV, MPG, QT, WMA, AIFF, AU, RAM, RA, MOV, MIDI, etc. In the relevant art, portable media players enable users to select media items either manually from memory and/or provide user configurable playlists by which media items may be selected automatically from the memory and outputted to the user.
However, the user may wish that this playlist selection be accomplished automatically based upon a randomized and/or semi-randomized routine that is performed by the processor of the portable media player. In addition, a simple, intuitive and non-intrusive mechanism for rearranging and/or changing of the automatically selected media items is lacking in the relevant art. Therefore, what is needed is a convenient, natural, fun, and satisfying mechanism that allows a user to indicate his or her desire that the portable media player, using a random or semi-random routines, to automatically select and output new media items, automatically re-order the media items in a play list stored in memory, and/or automatically populate or re-populate a play list with changed media items selected from memory.
Furthermore, a convenient, natural, fun, and satisfying user interface method and apparatus that allows a user to indicate a desired level or magnitude of the randomization and/or re-ordering and/or re-populating process to be performed by the portable media player.